Nandan Nilekani logs into politics
UIDAI chief wants ticket from Bangalore South, a seat won by BJP five times in a row.
Bangalore: The first real confirmation that Nandan Nilekani, one of the city’s most remarkable IT success stories, is going to dive head into the political world has come.
DC poll: Should Nandan Nilekani take the plunge into politics?
Karnataka PCC President G. Parameshwar said that the co-founder of IT bellwether Infosys and the head of UIDAI had 'expressed his intent', to contest Lok Sabha polls on the prestigious Congress ticket from Bangalore South constituency, when they met in Delhi.
“People like Nilekani expressing their intent to become a Congress candidate is something we feel really happy about,” Parameswhar said.
His cautious note of optimism belies the huge expectations that rest with Nilekani’s candidature in a seat won by BJP stalwart Ananth Kumar five times in a row, and in a climate created by the advent of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), that has set off a clamour for candidates with a clean, apolitical track record.
There is intense speculation that Nilekani, not a primary member of the party but a part of UPA2 for the last four years, could even be named as the prime ministerial candidate of the Congress party.